GCSE Psychology 9-1

Psychology 9-1 GCSE -  5.2.2 - Haney, Banks, and Zimbardo (1973) A Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison: Aims -  To find out whether the brutality reported in prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards or the situation.  Procedure -  Randomly assigned people who applied to guard or prisoner set up in a prison environment, prisoners were treated like real prisoners. Referred to not by their name but by their number. Guards were dressed identically.  Results -  Within a very short time, both guards and prisoners were settling into their roles. Within hours of the experiment the guards began to harass prisoners. Guards found it easy to dehumanize the prisoners.  Conclusions -  People will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play. Especially if the roles are strongly stereotyped. The prison environment was an important factor in creating the guards brutal behav...

Psychology 9-1 GCSE -  5.2.1 - Piliavin et al (1969) Good Samaritanism: An Underground Phenomenon?: Aims -  To investigate factors affecting helping behavior. Procedures -   They investigated helping behavior with: 1. The type of victim (drunk or ill). 2. The race of the victim (black or white). 3. The speed of helping. 4. The frequency of helping. 5. The race of the helper. It investigated this on a train on a 5-7 minute journey. Results -  Helping behavior was a lot higher than previous laboratory studies. They did not investigate the effects of the models helping as people stepped in before the model could. Race had no effects on the results. But there was a slight tendency for some race helping. Diffusion of responsibility was not present the more bystanders there were. Conclusions - Observation of an emergency situation creates an emotional arousal in bystanders. State of arousal can be effected by factors like; if you see you...

Psychology 9-1 GCSE -  4.2.2 - Sperry (1968) Hemisphere Deconnection and Unity in Conscious Awareness: Aims -  To show the independent streams of conscious awareness possessed by each hemisphere and to show how each hemisphere has its own memories.  Procedures -  It had two visual fields. Left is what we can see on our right, right is what we can see on our right. Information from the left visual field goes to the right hemisphere. Information from the right visual field goes to the left hemisphere. They were given visual tasks and stimuli and tactile tasks.  Results -  Participants would recognize the stimuli if it was presented again to the same visual field, but if it was presented to a different one from before, they would claim to never have seen it. Objects placed in the right hand could be described in speech or writing, if the same objects were placed in the left hand participants couldn't recognize them.  C...

Psychology  9-1 GCSE -  3.2.1 - Caspi et al. (2003) Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene: Aims -  To investigate whether functional change in the 5HTT gene is linked to a higher or lower risk of depression in an individual. Method -  The researchers used an opportunity sample from a cohort of participants who were part of another longitudinal study. There were 847 participants of 26 years old and they were split into 3 groups, depending on the length of their alleles on their 5HTT transporter gene. Group 1 - Two short alleles, group 2 - one short and one long allele, group 3 - two long alleles. 1. Stressful life events occurring after the 21st birthday and before the 26th birthday were assessed using a life history calendar.  2. Post-year depression was assessed using the diagnostic interview schedule. 3. A correlation was tested between stressful life events and depression. Between the leng...